Christina is a Florida born musician who is a ‘Russian school’ taught classical pianist and composer. She grew up in a competitive piano environment and won plenty of contests and awards playing the music of Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bach and many other giants in the name of classical piano. In High school she studied the music of many great jazz and bebop legends, such as Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Eroll Garner, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. Christina uses her free time to study dozens of genres, everywhere from folk country to Indian classical music. Professionally, her performing career is as diverse as it gets. She debuted her own piano concerto at the Naples Philharmonic at the age of 16, performed all over the world as a rock, pop, and Broadway keyboardist on Cruise ships, and headlined virtuosic piano recitals performing the music of Rachmaninoff along with her own compositions.
Christina believes in teaching towards each student’s personalized strengths and interests. Because of her diverse musical background, she likes to incorporate whatever music the student enjoys listening to into her lessons by teaching them how to learn their favorite songs. She believes it is the duty of the teacher to motivate a student to continue an interest in playing when the student is still home and to instill a child-like wonder and amazement for the instrument no matter the age or skill level. As far as discipline, Christina understands that different students respond better to different levels of discipline. Having a well constructed practice routine helps many students know what to do when they get to a piano at home, however to some it can feel restricting and overwhelming. It’s important to keep a healthy balance of creativity, wonder, and discipline when teaching piano, and that’s exactly what Christina does!